If you’ve had the chance to read through my website intro, you will have noticed my use of the term “happy accidents”. In case you haven't heard this expression before, I’ll give you a quick explanation:

You’ve been sketching in your studio and your pen slips. You make it halfway through a painting and accidentally fumble your brush. You're mocking up some patterns but just knocked over a cup of coffee. You've simply taken a photo with the wrong shutter-speed. But what you thought was a “mistake” actually turns out to be something that enhances the project.

I love this expression, and I like the idea of celebrating the beauty of a natural cock-up. Isn’t it great when we loosen ourselves a little, disregard the rules for a moment and just allow ourselves to create freely? It may sound a bit kooky, but in fact there's good solid science behind using the unexpected, oblique and uncomfortable juxtapositions that accidents introduce into our creative lives.

My challenge to you is this: whatever you’re working on right now - free it up a little, make “mistakes”, loosen your mind, spill the ink, write something silly, do a crazy dance, whatever you need to do to break away from the mechanical and monotonous and let those happy accidents begin.

If you have your own happy accident, follow me on Instagram and use the hashtag #happyaccidentlove for a chance to be featured